I’ve been really sick, sorry I haven’t been around. I’m finally coming around to the other side of it all and life’s good again. I had an employee once who had the best phrase - “so you’ve had palpeetus of the punk again?” Yep, guess so. She was 76 and still working in a factory. That old broad had spunk for three of us. She also had a wart on her tongue that would bounce between the gap in her lower teeth but maybe that’s more information than you need right now.

It’s been great to get back to work at sexyads.com. I was amazed at how much I missed working when for months before I got sick I had said how much I wanted a break. I had in mind a trip to Paris or Atlanta or anyplace fun. My own bed wasn’t “it”.

In my email inbox was a letter from a single mother who’d written to me a while back saying that she was finally ready to start dating but she couldn’t get past feeling like a bad person to get a babysitter to go out. Not only that, but how should she tell her date that she has a small child? Should she tell him even.

I gave her my advice that life is to be lived and at 4 years old, her kid was going to sleep through it all anyway. As for telling her date about her child, why bother until she knows if he’s worthwhile anyway. I’m of the opinion that you keep your kids out of it until you know whether you like the person or not. I suggested that she meet him and tell him over coffee, face to face. That would give him a chance to meet her and see how wonderful she is. If he would have wavered on hearing about the child via email, in person it might not be a big problem.

Anyway, in her mail today she’d met the guy at a local coffee shop and neither realized that their 30 minute coffee lasted nearly 2 1/2 hours. They enjoyed each other’s company so much that she’d been too busy to write. He knows about her little boy but she’s taking my advice and not introducing them too soon. I’m all for protecting the littlies until you know for sure that he’s a keeper.

LIKE THIS?

A woman in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida has tried nightclubs and online dating sites, but now the 42-year-old single mother is looking for love where everyone else’s heart is breaking: the real estate market.

She’s struggling financially and doesn’t want to lose her house, so the former real estate agent who’s been alone for 8 years has decided to market her house and herself in one big package deal.

“I figured, let’s combine the ad, because I’m looking for love and I’m looking to sell the house,” said Devon Trabosh, a Barbie-esque blonde who teeters around the nearly 2,000-square-foot house in patent leather heels.

“Marry a Princess Lost in America,” Trabosh wrote in the ads she posted on eBay and Craigslist last week. She describes a life of romance and travel and a home decorated with vaulted ceilings, upgraded tile and a soaking tub in a gated community with a pool and tennis courts.

“I came up with this dream plan, because I’ve always dreamed about being a fairy-tale princess,” says Trabosh who admits to being fond of being rescued by a knight in shining armour.

She listed the home for $340,000 on a sell-it-yourself Web site but upped the price, adding a $500,000 shipping fee to include her companionship on eBay, but eBay removed her ad because they won’t allow ads for bodies or relationships.

Trabosh hasn’t received any serious offers but says she’s had nearly 500 responses, mostly positive and one handsome Italian she’s hoping to meet in Miami in a few weeks. They’ve been e-mailing since her ad went online.

Not everyone approves. Her 14 year old daughter says her mother is embarrassing her and some have emailed her saying she shouldn’t have to sell herself to find love.

“I know I’m putting myself out there. I’m sincere. I believe in true love,” she said. “I want to get married again.”

I think everyone deserves happiness. I can’t believe that a woman that looks like Trabosh can’t get a date. If she’s been trying online dating sites, she obviously hasn’t found the right one. She should call me.

Have you ever met someone through the net and wondered if they were being honest? My personal experience is different but I’ve heard from enough people who’ve met people that they had a feeling they were lying about something.

Don’t spend one minute with someone who’s not on the up and up. There are too many good ones to saddle yourself with a loser. When you are ready to meet someone for the first time, here are some clues to watch out for.

Body Language

• The person will make little or no eye contact with you. If they’re lying, they’ll do everything to avoid direct eye contact.
• Gestures will be limited. Hand and arm movements will be more mechanical than animated.
• They’ll touch their face and neck but won’t touch their body, especially with an open hand on their chest.
• They might shrug their shoulders trying to relax themselves in an effort to look casual.

Consistency

• Timing is off between gestures and words. Their facial expression won’t match the timing of the words. For instance, "I’m really angry with you," and a frowning face doesn’t happen at the same time - the frown comes later.
• Gestures don’t match the words. Saying "I love you," and frowning says they’re insincere. Clenched fists while making a statement of pleasure is insincere.
• The emotions of happiness, surprise, awe and love will be expressed by the mouth but not the whole face.

On the Defensive

• When wrongfully accused, only a guilty person gets defensive. An innocent person will go on the offensive.
• They are reluctant to face their accuser and may turn their head or shift their body away from you.
• Liars commonly slouch and are unlikely to stand up straight with arms out.
• You’ll see movement away from you - like toward the door.
• There will be no body contact while they’re trying to convince you that you’re wrong.
• They might put something between you as a physical barrier, such as a glass, pillow or other object as a non-verbal way of saying they don’t want to talk about it

Nobody wants to be with someone who’s dishonest. Let’s face it, if they lie to you about one thing, you’ll never trust them anyway. Don’t waste one minute with someone who lies to you because you’ll always be unhappy.

In a word, no. I don’t believe you can.

I think you can get to know someone and you might be in love with the idea of having the person you perceive him or her to be in your life forever, but I don’t think you can truly be “in love” over the net.

Remember that I do have some history on this subject. Back in 1994, before the www existed in Orlando, Florida, I met the man who is now my husband through a personal ad on a newsgroup sent to a local bulletin board system. We emailed back and forth many times. He seemed like such a nice man with goals, aspirations and morals similar to mine. The first emails took a day or so to reply to and before the first week was out we were both waiting for a reply.

I thought that there must be something to this or I wouldn’t be so eager to hear from him again. He seemed so perfect. We went to calling each other. (I was in Orlando, Florida, remember but he was near Melbourne, Australia!) Then we sent each other things from where we were, our favorite music and we were the best of friends, even though we’d never been in the same room together.

One day I told my grown children that I thought I’d take a trip to Australia to meet this man and they were both very upset.

“What if he’s an axe murderer or a rapist?”

This was WAY before it was common to meet someone online. There weren’t any dating sites because there were no sites at all where we lived. We ARE old after all.

Anyway, I decided that I had to know if he was perfect or not. I kept asking myself, “What if he IS perfect and I live my whole life always wondering?” Of course he could have been full of crap and a loser but I still needed to know. My soul told me to go. That’s the best way to describe how I felt. I just had to go.

I arrived in Melbourne and he was there to meet the plane with a bouquet of roses. When he saw me, he tossed the flowers on the floor and gave me the biggest hug. Then he picked up the flowers and gave them to me. I’ll never forget how great that felt.

Was he perfect? He certainly was. He still is. Ok, he’s a man and well, men do things that will always irritate women. Sometimes he leaves the toilet seat up, sometimes he forgets to take out the trash and sometimes he forgets how to empty the dishwasher. What he never forgets to do is tell me how much he loves me — every day. He treats me as a complete equal in everything.

So we decided if we could find love through the internet, maybe we should try to help others. That’s when SexyAds.com was born. Why SexyAds? To be honest, at first I thought it was a bit full-on. As the years have passed, I have come to realize that every relationship, whether you meet in person through a friend, or at a club or even on the internet, it’s all about the sex. It’s how we’re built.

Yes, I know sex is only a small part of any relationship. Friendship is way more important to me, but I’ll admit that I wouldn’t want a relationship that was only friendship. I like the intimacy that we share and would feel a great loss not to have it in my life.

So, that’s my story and I didn’t fall in love “over the net” but the net certainly played a huge part in helping two people find each other from so far apart.